Twelve Days and a White Christmas

The end of 2010 brought us a lovely surprise in the form of over three inches of snow in our back garden. Living near the South Carolina/North Carolina border means we get more of the North Carolina weather than our neighbors at church and my work get. It's lovely this second day of Christmas morning. Though there are some cars on the highway, for the most part, it's quiet and white blankets the landscape.

Of course, we Western and European Christians have this concept that Mary and Joseph traveled through the dead of winter to Bethlehem; that snow lay on the ground as the beautiful hymn, "Venite Adoramus" claims, and that the infant child though possibly cold in his meagre stable cradle, had a mother and father who tenderly took care of his needs while shepherds and angels called on the new family. This rather romantic view of the Incarnation gives us comfort in our own hardships, but perhaps it also helps us to render the struggles we face in life as unrelated to what God intended them to be. After all, it was a "silent night, holy night," and most of us don't think of our pain and struggles as holy.

Perhaps if we take a look at what the Catechism says about this wonderful birth, we can make the connection to Jesus a little more visceral, a little more profound. Jesus is an "in your face" kind of guy. The life he lived was for our benefit and example. Brother Gregory, OCSO, a monk at Mepkin Abbey, sent me this quote for Christmas and New Year's. "Go see in the arms of the Virgin, God became one of us, so that we might live his life." Living the Christ life is what being a Christian should be all about. We study the life of Jesus in the Scripture and other holy writings; we commune with Jesus in the Sacraments, and through prayer and contemplation, we look at the Lord of Life with adoration and with resolution. In the arms of the Virgin is our life. In the arms of the Virgin is our answer of how to walk day by day. In the arms of a Virgin is Love sent down at Christmas.

For me, it is critically important to keep all twelve days of Christmas. Doing so is certainly counter-cultural, and yet, it's what I need to remind myself that it's not about our packing up the decorations before New Year's day, or returning to work after a generous winter break, or once again becoming obsessed with our struggles and pain laid aside for a moment to remember the baby in the manger. Like the reformed Scrooge, keeping Christmas in my heart all year is vital because it means I will live the life that Jesus lived. I will love and pray, speak the truth, touch those in need, and ultimately die and rise in glory. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote about this idea in the following poem:

Moonless darkness stands between.
Past, the Past, no more be seen!
But the Bethlehem-star may lead me
To the sight of Him Who freed me
From the self that I have been.
Make me pure, Lord: Thou art holy;
Make me meek, Lord: Thou wert lowly;
Now beginning, and alway:
Now begin, on Christmas day.

Hopkins gives God credit from freeing us from ourselves by giving us the opportunity to be Christlike. Being Christlike means living as Jesus lived. May God help us all to be about doing God's business: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting those in prison, with grace and compassion, the grace and compassion shown by our Lord as we, too, live the Christ life.

Traveling the Road

I’m old enough now that there are more than several anniversaries that I find myself marking. Obviously there is the anniversary of my engagement to my husband Michael, and of course, there is the wedding anniversary that we have faithfully celebrated for twenty-seven years. There are other anniversaries—our own birthdays, birthdays of our children, birthdays of our parents—and now the anniversaries of their deaths are times we remember as well. Even more mundane anniversaries like the surgery I had in 2001 or a particular personal triumph like my graduation ceremony in 2008 when I received my second degree from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English program are worth noting.

Robert Frost, who was long associated with the Bread Loaf Program, wrote a poem that most people can at least recite a few lines from. “Two roads diverged in yellow wood…” The roads taken and not taken are strong metaphors for my life, and the marks the journey has left on me come in the form of those anniversaries.

And so I think that what I am doing as I sit here writing tonight is marking the events of another December and considering how the road I’ve traveled has left its mark on me. Perhaps it’s not a bad exercise at all to allow one’s mind to wander back over the pathway of one’s life and to consider how one has been shaped by the journey itself. Nothing has shaped my life more than my journey in the Church.

It’s almost the end of the Advent season. Christmas Eve will be here in less than five days. We’re having a modest Christmas in this household for several reasons, but most importantly because both Michael and I have become acutely aware that the season is first and foremost a spiritual celebration. In the past, we’ve provided many gifts for our children, but now both of them are out of the home. I stopped trying to give gifts to my extended family once my nieces and nephews began having children. Here, at home, it’s just us and the dogs. My mom will have her traditional Christmas Day brunch, but for the first time in all these years of marriage, we have opted not to make the three hour drive there. Instead, we’ll attend Midnight Mass at St. James, where we’ll welcome the Christ child, and then we’ll sleep in on Christmas morning. We’ll have dinner with friends later in the day, and save our gifts for Twelfth Night.

In many ways, this way of doing Christmas will be a paradigm shift for me. So far, I haven’t felt any angst about not having gifts for people to whom I have often felt obliged to give something. Instead of shopping, I plan to volunteer at one of our local charities. My deepest desire is to “sit” with the mystery that is The Incarnation—to let the Christ Child be born in me in a new way, a way that makes the event a truly spiritual experience. I pray that you, too, will find your road to a joyful, peace-filled Christmas, and that ages hence, you will be telling your story, not with a sigh, but with the realization that you found the path that made all the difference.